The Cozy Mystery List Blog

The first thing I do every morning when I come downstairs, is check my Cozy Mystery blog comments. You cannot imagine my surprise to find the following comment posted by Allison:

Nothing to do with this blog post, but… did you see? Jim Parsons from Big Bang Theory was on Craig Ferguson tonight. Turns out he loves cozy mysteries, and he mentioned your website!! How cool is that!

Allison, I agree, “How cool is that!”

I have to admit that I was so excited that I immediately found the link to CBS’s The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Being mentioned on TV is beyond exciting (even if the “dot com” was bleeped from “Cozy Mystery dot com”). Hearing these two men talk about the books they read, well, that in itself was exciting. I think it’s especially “cool” when people today are willing to let it be known that they love to read. I mean, when was the last time you watched a talk show where the love for reading was a topic? (And the reason for the guest appearing on the talk show wasn’t to plug his/her book?)

Of course, when my husband finally came downstairs, I made him sit down and watch the clip on my computer. That’s right! Even before he drank his first cup of coffee, which, by the way, is a time when I try not to bother him. (He’s not a morning person, but coffee does tend to help a bit…)

My husband has been telling me all day that I should write this. I was hesitant to do so because I truly didn’t want to toot my own horn, and most importantly, I didn’t want to appear to be a “paparazzi” type of exploiter of celebrities. (I don’t buy “paparazzi” magazines at the check out, and surely, I wouldn’t want Mr. Parsons to feel like I’m exploiting him.)

Nevertheless, I’m so excited about my “fifteen seconds of fame” that I just could not contain myself.

(I just found out the link is no longer active, sorry!)

My tech guy (aka my husband) is in the process of transferring all of my files/content to a new computer. He sat down at my computer last week to do something and saw how much time it took my old computer to save new pages that I put on the Cozy Mystery site. I guess I didn’t notice how long it took because I was used to it, AND I’m still amazed at how much computers do, regardless of the time it takes them to do it!

I usually get my husband’s cast-off computers when he upgrades his, and in the past when he has given me one of his old computers (a new one to me) I haven’t mentioned it because everything went seamlessly. But this time he hit a glitch that he tells me was a stupid mistake: I had nine comments that some of you had posted between 2:30 and 10:30 AM (my time) which I have lost. He was able to restore everything from before the time that my back-up took place last night, which was at around 2:30.

Everything is back to normal now, so I won’t be losing your comments again. I’m sorry that I lost comments that you took the time to write.

Have any of you ever noticed how many people “get in with the wrong crowd“?

Well, I have! I should probably tell you I watch several ID (Investigation Discovery) channel true crime shows.  (I should probably also tell you that this is an entry that has nothing to do with mystery books, Cozy, or non…)

It seems like more and more I hear the culprits on these shows described as something like  “He was a wonderful boy. He helped aged ladies across the street, he rescued cats from high tree branches, he knit blankets for the cold, but then he … got in with the wrong crowd.

It’s at this point that the television show lets us see our previously described Eagle Scout joining in with the wrong crowd as they smoke their cigarettes, drink their booze, and sit around all day tripping aged ladies as they cross the street.

Recently, every time I hear about the wrong crowd, I find myself wondering who the first person in this wrong crowd was. I mean, who established this wrong crowd? Why is it that the previously described Eagle Scout wasn’t the first member of this wrong crowd? Why does the TV show imply that had it not been for these other wrong crowd members, our upstanding guy would never have thought to massacre five people in his neighborhood, as well as the cat he had previously saved from the tree branch?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to continue watching my true crime shows, but I do think it would be downright refreshing if just once I heard the guilty described as: He/she started the wrong crowd.

What do you think? Did the wrong crowd always exist before the criminal joined it, or did the criminal actually start the wrong crowd?